Cyber Attacks & What Business Faces Going Forward

According to the cybersecurity company, SonicWall, 67.6% of all cyber-attacks around the world occurred in the United States. Broken down, it amounts to 421.5 million hits from 2020 to 2021.

That’s a 98% increase year-to-year.

Worldwide, there were a stunning 623.3 million hits. That is almost 20 attempts a second. Ransomware is the most popular attack method in North America. It accounts for 30% of all attacks.

And many of those attacks — says SonicWall — are of the old school variety. Bad guys will use UPS and the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) snail mail to attack. Insurance, defense and transportation firms see the most attacks.

“Targets received one of two packages: One, purportedly from Amazon, arrived in a gift box accompanied by a thank-you letter, a fake gift card, and a USB drive,” the report said. “The other, disguised as a package from the US Department of Health and Human Services, included a page of guidance regarding COVID-19 and a USB drive.”

Plug in that USB drive and it can take control of your computer, or if it’s a business, it can work its way into your server. Chaos happens next and the ransom demands start coming.

A different report from the cybersecurity firm, Intel 471 says four strains of malware account for 70% of all attacks.

“The most prevalent ransomware strain in the fourth quarter of 2021 was LockBit 2.0, which was responsible for 29.7% of all reported incidents, followed by Conti at 19%, PYSA at 10.5% and Hive at 10.1%,” the researchers at Intel 471 said.

Source link: Insurance Business America — https://bit.ly/36kGVVx